Birthday Boy

29 things I love about my 29 year old husband....

1-He is geniunely good. Not for gain or popularity, just that is who he is.
2-He is very patient.
3-He is rarely ever mad and even when he is he will forgive you in a heartbeat.
4-He is a ton of fun to be around.
5-He is very handsome.
6-He loves to play games and have get togethers.
7- He's funny and makes me laugh.
8- He thinks I'm funny and even laughs at my lame jokes.
9- He makes killer pizzas.
10-He makes everything more fun when he is there.
11-He is a great dad. I am so blessed with how much he does for the boys.
12-He is a fantastic husband, he is always tries to put me first.
13-He puts up with me which on a long day with the kids is not an easy task!
14-He loves a new adventure and keeps our lives full of fun memories.
15-He can fix anything!
16-He is a loyal friend and is never one to talk bad or belittle someone else.
17-He is a righteous priesthood holder and is a great example of someone living the gospel.
18-He is really smart.
19-When he leans over the side of the bed and I push him off he laughs even though it's totally immature of me:) Funny thing to love I know but for some reason I find it so sweet!
20-He thinks everything I cook is the best meal ever.
21-He is the master at compliments.
22-He is a great singer and musically talented.
23-He has an awesome smile.
24-He is willing to go along with whatever new scheme I have cooked up.
25-He's a great dancer and loves to start hip hop parties in our living room.
26-He makes me want to be a better person.
27-He is the best thing that ever happened to me.
28-I love him and
29- He's my very best friend!!!

Doesn't my husband rock???

Since it is almost Jacoby's birthday I figured it was the perfect time to brag about how awesome he is. He can fix or make just about anything. It's amazing!!! I never knew he was so handy until we moved to this house and then he just does all sorts of things like installing a new garbage disposal or fixing a broken sink pipe. It's really fun to see this side of him. Check out all his recent fixes:

1.We have been looking for a new double jogger since the one we have is really hard to steer. The other day I found this one for free on Craigslist (okay so he has the fixing skills and I have the finding things free skils:). It's a BOB Sport Utility Duallie, that normally costs around $400. They were giving it away since the shocks were broken and the brakes didn't work. We bring it home and Jacoby takes apart both the shocks and brakes and is able to fix them both! Now it works perfectly and is such a nice stroller, so much lighter and easier to push (which means a lot when your kids weigh close to 80 pounds together!).

2. Last Christmas I found this exercise bike on freecycle that they were giving away because the power circuit no longer worked (or something like that). Jacoby took the wires apart then resaudered some stuff and got a new power plug and now it works awesome! Once again this thing would be like $300-$400 brand new but with my finding and his fixing skills it was free!
3. Last but not least, about a year ago Jacoby made me these awesome food storage rotating shelves. My mom actually wrote the book on how to make your own shelves if you want to check it out at http://www.spacesavvy.com/. She had given us a copy but her design is for front to back loading which when you have a basement with space works great. But we had no way to set it somewhere that we would be able to reach the front and back so we decided to make ours front loading. Using her book and the idea in our head we were able to modify the directions to make this awesome storage rotation which I have loved (except for the fact that the boys love it too and everytime we go in the garage Rett runs over to move cans about!)


You ROCK Jacoby!!!!

Back to school!

I got word today: I am going back to school! Above is the Jacob School of Engineering where I will be studying this fall.

This fall I will be attending UCSD to get a master's degree in Electrical Engineering. I received the Department of Defense SMART scholarship which will pay my schooling, allow me to go to school full time, work part time, and get paid my full salary. It was a deal that was too good to pass up. Hmmmm, lets see, that's 100% of my time to school and 50% of my time to work. How much does that leave for my family? Although Heather is excited for me and supportive of this plan, she is realizing that she might not see me much for the next two years. I guess all that studying for the GRE paid off.

Along with this change, we have applied for on-campus housing in beautiful La Jolla (the most expensive area in San Diego and right by the beach), which will save us a bunch of money because they keep the prices low for students, and will allow me to be very close to school. However, after living in a house with a backyard for two years, a small 800 sq. ft. apartment will be tough. The good news is that there are parks and playgrounds right outside the door and they even have garden plots we can use to grow whatever we want.

Mothers Day Cards

Today we were making Mothers Day cards. Coby kept saying, "When the three grandmas get to our house they are going to be so excited. So, so excited. " He was pretty proud of his handiwork! He was a little sad when I reminded him that we were mailing these and that all three grandmas were not personally going to pick them up from him! The first card he put glue all over the words so I had to remind him about just putting it around the words. The second card he did pretty well on his own and the third card I got up to grab something and he put glue everywhere! I think they just might dry in time for Mothers Day:)

H: Coby do you remember who all your grandmas are? There's Nana who lives with Papa Marty in Washington. Then grandma who lives with Grandpa Charlie in Utah (We like to refer to my mom as the slip n slide grandma since we did that with her last summer!) and then there is Grams who we just saw a few days ago.

C: Oh, I know who Grams is! Grams and Papa.

H: That's right, Grams is married to Papa.

C: Am I married to you?

H: No, I am married to Daddy.

C: Ahh, I wanted to be married to you.

The best is that when I was about Coby's age my dad was talking to me and somehow it turned to who was married to who. I asked if I could marry my dad and when he said he was married to mom and that I would have to marry someone else I cried and cried about it. He still likes to tease me about it to this day!

Suretrack

Christmas picture
Today making the worlds longest train


Suretrack has changed our lives. Okay, well maybe it's not quite that dramatic but I do love them. Our boys got an awesome train table for Christmas that never really gets played with mainly due to the fact that the tracks are always broken. We set it up and within minutes, sometimes even seconds Rett has either taken pieces of the track off or one of the boys has accidentally bumped it and the whole thing falls down. So within a week of owning it we gave up on having any levels or bridges (which make the whole thing more fun) and only made flat courses. Lately I have gotten so tired of always having to re-build that we had talked about gluing it down. And then suretrack came into our lives. Someone mentioned it at a playgroup and skeptical though I was about paying $14 for 14 little clips (I only paid $15 for the table and all the tracks!) it has been a miracle! Our track has been together almost three weeks now, bridges and all with only a few minor fixes now and again. The clips just slide under where the tracks connect to one another and hold them fixed so even if they get bumped or purposely pulled they will not disconnect. We only have enough for one upper level so we have them on the upper sections and a few of the upper/lower connections but they work wonders. If you have train tracks and little boys give it a try!!!!

Rachel's Wedding

Last weekend we went to my cousin Rachel's wedding. And no I didn't get a single picture of the bride! That's what happens when you have two rambucous kids contained in the same room for 5+ hours and you are trying to help. Here's some fun pictures though, I especially liked the short little clip of my grandparents dancing. They had invited all couples who had been married 60 years or more to come dance after the bride and grooms dance. It was pretty cute!

Rett & Coby dancing with cousin Jessica and Aunt Becca.

Paris

This is a continuation of my report of our Europe trip in March 2008. We visited 4 cities (Venice, Rome, Paris, and London). This post is about Paris

One of my favorite things about Paris was the food. I was tired of Italian food after being in Rome and Venice for a week. I mean, all they eat is pasta, nothing else: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they are ok with it. Well I wasn't. So when we came to Paris and they had roast duck, steak with cheese sauce, delicious onion soup, pork chops with this fantastic mustard sauce, and sandwiches with so much flavor I was in heaven. The first sandwich I had was filled with mango and turkey and some cranberry sauce. It was like a blast of flavors in my mouth. It totally reminded me of the movie "Ratatouille" where Remi savors the taste sensation of Parisian food. I hear you Remi.

We made a stop at the palace in Versaille where King Louis the XIV lived and made the center of Europe. It was exactly what I thought a king's palace should look like: acres and acres of gardens with water fountains, huge ballrooms with frescos and paintings, giant fireplaces, and hundreds of fancy rooms and open space.

The hall of mirrors at the palace of Versaille

We spent 3 hours in the Louvre and saw the Venus de Milo, Madonna on the Rocks, some Michaelangelo sculptures, and of course the Mona Lisa, among so many other things, and we probably only saw 1/10th of the museum: this place is gargantuan. Here is the perfect reverse pyramid.

We visited the chapel St. Chapelle where they (the Catholic church) used to display the crown of thorns that was on Jesus' head (they say). Now they bring it out and show it at Notre Dame during Easter. We didn't get to see it at either place, but if it really was the crown of thorns, that sure would be something woudn't it?

Notre Dame was magnificent. Here is our token picture in front of it.

Heather losing her head at the Place de Concorde, where 1119 people also lost their heads during the French Revolution.

Eiffel Tower